


Drabble Collection

by LadyGoat



Series: The Gods Are Laughing [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Genre: Drabble, Drunken Shenanigans, Just Add Kittens, M/M, NO SERIOUSLY SPOILERS, Spoilers, referenced character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-08-22 11:19:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16596884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGoat/pseuds/LadyGoat
Summary: Drabble are like deer, if you see one there's probably five more lurking in the woods nearby. So I'm sticking this here to get it out of my head and leaving space for any others that run out in front of my train of thought.





	1. Where do you go when your heart is broken?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's only one place Alexios can go when he's grieving this hard.

Cold rain poured down in blinding sheets, the darkness occasionally split by painfully bright flashes of lightning followed by roars of thunder. Alexios barely noticed, scrambling up the slope in front of him. His heart was an aching hole in his chest and all he could think about was Phoibe, dead in Athens at the hands of Cultists. Over and over, his tired mind asked the same questions:

_Did she hear me call her name? Did she know I was coming? Please, gods, don't let her have thought she was alone, did she hear me call her name?_

His sandal slipped on a patch of wet rock, slamming his greave into the ground and his knee into the greave. The dull pain didn't penetrate his haze. He thought he'd slept the night before the horrors in Athens, the plague and Phoibe murdered and his sister killing Perikles. He hadn't slept afterward, leaving the city, his only thought to take his grief and the hole in his chest and get _away_.

_Did she hear me? Did she know I was coming? Did she think she was alone? Please, please don't let her have thought she was alone, tell me she heard me call her name..._

Another grip on another tree trunk and another fast scrabble up wet rock and he was at the top of the ridge, then down it and onto a muddy road. He jogged down the road by feel, pushing his body hard. Lights and voices, the wrong ones, off to his right, but no one saw him in the dark and rain and he kept going, one foot after another.

_They can't catch us if we keep moving forward._

_Yes, mater. But then you let them throw me off a mountain._

_Did she know I was coming? Did she know I tried to save her? Did she hear me call her name? Did she know? Did she know?_

His chest was heaving and it felt like he couldn't get enough air, but he'd felt like that since he saw Phoibe's small, still form surrounded by men with bloody weapons. So many men, to murder one little girl. He'd taken them down without mercy but hadn't been fast enough. The one time in his life when speed had really, truly mattered and he hadn't been fast enough.

_Hesitation only hastens the grave._

_Shut up, mater._

_Did she hear me? Did she know I tried? Did she hear me coming? Did she hope?_

Alexios's throat felt raw and bleeding but it had felt that way since he'd screamed Phoibe's name after hearing her cry out. He ignored it and ran down the road, back into the dark and rain, one foot and then the other, over and over and over to the rhythm of the questions pounding in his head. He tried to ignore them like he ignored the ache and burn in his muscles but the circling thoughts drove out everything else.

And then a house he knew loomed up beside him and he stumbled to a halt on its porch, nearly falling against the door. There were footsteps inside, and he nearly fell again when the door opened.

Lykaon caught him, staggering under his weight. “Gentle Asklipios! What's happened, Alexios? Never mind, you're safe now. I've got you.”


	2. False Start from "It's Only You"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexios fights a bear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the original start to "It's Only You" that came after the family dinner in Sparta. It just didn't work for me, so got scrapped.
> 
> But y'all, seriously, fuck those bears. There I am, creeping around somewhere trying to get into an army camp, and suddenly BEARS EVERYWHERE. They really make stealth difficult.

Blood, warm and sticky, trickled down the outside of Alexios's left arm. He flexed the hand, then the arm itself. It hurt, but everything still worked. If the wound didn't go bad, he'd have nothing but new scars to remember it by. The Chora of Delphi wasn't far, with Lykaon's house just outside it. If the gods were kind, the doctor would be home and would remember him. He looked down at the bear, then shrugged and began cutting its fangs and claws out. The hide might fetch more in the agora, but showing up at Lykaon's door with a raw, oozing bear hide to go with the arm the bear had cut open might be a bit much. 

It was then, bloodied and sore and with a handful of messy bear bits, that the heavens opened and the rain poured down. Alexios muttered bitterly under his breath, trying not to slide down the hillside along with the water. The muttering became a shouted curse as his foot hit a patch of slick dead leaves and went out from under him. He arrived in the Chora of Delphi sodden, muddy, bruised, bleeding, and limping from a twisted ankle. But he still had his trophies from the bear, which he tucked into his belt pouch as he made his way to Lykaon's house. There was light inside, and the smell of cooking. It was hard to tell with the sound of rain, but he thought he heard only one set of footsteps. With luck, it was Lykaon. Ikaros on his shoulder, he knocked on the door.

The man who opened the door looked exactly like Alexios remembered. He wore a simpler chiton appropriate for a night at home, but it was the same blue as the one he'd been wearing when they met. His brown hair curled about his face, and his beard had been neatly trimmed recently. Best of all, after a moment of confusion his eyes lit and he held out both hands. “Alexios! By the gods! Look at you, alive and on my doorstep! Come in, you must be cold.”

Alexios gripped Lykaon's wrists. “Lykaon. It's good to see you again. I meant to return sooner, but...”

Lykaon drew Alexios into the warmth of the house, taking the soaking wet chlamys from his shoulders after shooing Ikaros to the windowsill. “You have nothing to apologize for, Alexios. You told me something of your quest during our time together. I didn't dare hope I would see you again.” He took the mercenary's wounded arm in both hands, looking at it critically. “This is the worst of your injuries?”

Alexios nodded, feeling tension seeping out of his muscles along with the chill of the rain. “The rest is only mud and bruises. A bear took didn't like the look of me and I was forced to defend myself. The treacherous ground did the rest in my haste to get down to the Chora.”


	3. Impiety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Alexios climbing Athena because of a brilliant drunken idea.

“You know what there is t'do on Kephallonia, Barnabas?” Alexios gestured expansively with the pitcher of wine he was holding.

Barnabas tried very hard to focus on him. “What? Rob people?”

“That too. But no. You climb things. D'you know...D'you know how many times I climbed that statue of Zeus? Climb right up his dick.”

Barnabas goggled at him and finished off the cup in front of him, promptly refilling it from the last of a pitcher. “That's it? You climb things?”

Alexios nodded seriously. “Rocks. Zeus. Buildings. Then you rob people.”

The sailor squinted. “I don' see how robbing people goes with climbin' things.”

“It just does!” Alexios announced. “That's the...the problem with Athens. People all touchy. About climbin things. Throw fruit. But all these statues and people squeal an' disapprove if you go up 'em.”

“You should show em!” Barnabas said, slopping wine on his arm as he gestured at the Akropolis. “Climb Athena!”

Alexios grinned and drained the pitcher in his hand. “That's...impi. Impious. Impiety. Death sentence, climbin' all over Athena.”

Barnabas tried his best to look crafty. “Only if they _catch_ you.”

The mercenary's grin turned wolfish. “Damn right. Ima do it. Gonna climb Athena an' jump off 'er head.”

The two of them lurched and swayed, trying to look inconspicuous, through the dark streets of Athens amid other revelers. The festival of Dionysos was a good time for looking inconspicuous when drunk. Somehow they managed to make it to the Akropolis where they stood, trying to look reverent, at the foot of the massive gold and ivory statue, looming nearly 40 feet above them.

“Wait here. Ima do it.”

Barnabas nearly vibrated with anticipation in the dark as Alexios slunk around behind the statue, swaying less now. The folds of the goddess's tunic made convenient places to wedge his hands and feet. He muttered an apology to the goddess as he got to her ass, but kept going, up and up and up, until finally he balanced atop the gorgon's head helmet she wore and turned his face to the sky, where the same stars glittered over Athens that hung over the statue of Zeus on Kephallonia.

Then he looked down at Barnabas, forty-odd feet below him next to a pile of textiles and flowers and other soft offerings he'd collected.

Alexios leaned forward, stretched out his arms like Ikaros's wings, and let himself fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The statue of Athena on the Akropolis was actually gold and ivory, and 37 feet tall. She was the work of the sculptor Phidias (whose name you will recognize if you've progressed far enough in the game).
> 
> Interestingly, some scholars think that the massive importation of ivory for this statue and one of Zeus were responsible for the plague that struck Athens in 429BC.


	4. The Fiercest Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set many years in the future, when everything is settled. Inspired by [this drawing](http://nossik.tumblr.com/post/179302415355/i-havent-reached-anywhere-near-the-end-of-the-game).

Lykaon hummed quietly to himself as he washed the dishes, enjoying the breeze. The birds were singing, everything was peacefu--

“Malakas! I've fought a minotaur! _Two_ minotaurs! I can take you, goat.”

Everything was peaceful, and--

“Metrokoites. I will turn you into stew. I will make arrowheads of your bones and carve jewelry from your horns.”

The day was beautiful, anyway, and Alexios had volunteered to take over the morning milking so that he could finish the dishes and then inventory his medicines. It sounded like it was going well.

“Do you need help?” he called.

“No!” came the emphatic answer. “Everything is _just fine_.” More quietly, “I killed Medusa. She could turn people to stone. I stabbed her in the face. I don't even need a sword for you. Stand still.”

Shrugging, Lykaon dried the last cup and set it on the shelves, then turned to his stillroom. Maybe a nice mint tea later, something soothing. He thought he'd gotten some arnica off the last trader to come through, too...yes, there it was. Something for bruises might be good, as well.

* * *

Alexios glared at the horizontal-pupilled demon before him calmly chewing her cud. She looked back at him and as if daring him to do something about it, kicked the (empty) bucket away. Again. Muttering threats and imprecations under his breath, he retrieved it and sat down beside her. 

Right. Lykaon made this look easy. Bucket under goat. Done. Hands on teats. Close off the tops with your thumb, then one by one close the next three fingers. Alexios was rewarded by a stream of warm milk all over his pinky. He sighed and tried again with the other hand, this time with better results.

Back to the first hand. This was the first time since...well, in a long time that he'd felt his hands were too big and too clumsy.

This time he saw the back foot start to come up and snatched the bucket out from under the goat in time. “I will _end you_ ,” he hissed. A pitifully small amount of milk sloshed at the bottom of the pail. With a another sigh and a distrustful look at the goat, he went back to milking.

* * *

Lykaon looked up with concern from the scroll he was reading as Alexios came in, the frown quickly fading as he saw the triumphant look on the other man's face.

“I have defeated the goat.”

“It sounded like quite a battle.”

“She's cunning, that one.” Alexios handed over the pail of milk and Lykaon poured it into a clay jar, stirring a spoonful of yogurt into it and covering it with loosely woven linen.

Pouring tea, the doctor set two cups at the table and came over to kiss Alexios lightly. “My brave man. Surely your most difficult opponent yet. Come, sit, and tell me all about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to keep dairy goats. Goats with teats too small for my hands were the bane of my existence, as were bucket kickers.


	5. Bundle of fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing but pure fluff to correct a historical oversight that Ubisoft committed.

Lykaon looked up as Alexios burst into the kitchen, hands cupped against his diaphragm. “Alexiskos, tell me you’re not holding a handful of your own intestines.”

His beloved shook his head and held his hands out. “No. I found this. She needs help.” Cradled in his large, calloused hands was a lump of white fur with a tail and four stubby legs, patches of black and orange decorating it. It wobbled its head around, and opened its mouth to emit a tiny peep. “One of the ship cats on the Charybdis died, leaving her litter of kittens. This was the only one left. A sailor had already drowned the others.”

Lykaon looked up from gently stroking the kitten’s head with one finger. “Show me your knuckles, Alexios.”

“She needs to eat, my heart, she’s so tiny. Do we have goats’ milk?”

The doctor smiled. “We do. I just got done milking. I’ll find a rag for her to suckle, and something to make a bed for her.”

Alexios pulled the kitten back against his chest, murmuring to her softly while Lykaon fetched a bowl of milk and a small rag of clean, unbleached linen. “Here, get her fed.” He rummaged on a shelf for a moment, emerging with a small basket that he lined with wool and more linen. “And now she has a bed.”

It took some wrangling, but the tiny scrap of felinity finally got the hang of sucking milk from the rag. Her stomach full, she curled up in the nest prepared for her. Alexios hovered over the tiny basket, making helpless noises. “She’s so tiny, Lykaiskos!”

“I know. Now show me your hands.”

Alexios glanced at him sideways and held them out, palms up. Lykaon gave him a Look.

“The _backs_ of your hands, my golden one.” The knuckles of one hand were skinned and swollen. The doctor sighed. “I’ll get the arnica. At least you saved one of them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CLASSICAL GREECE HAD CATS. They'd had cats for at least 500 years by the time of Odyssey! Because they traded with Egypt, and managed to smuggle cats out. And as we all know, once you have a pair of breeding cats, you have a LOT of cats. So many cats.
> 
> That means the relevant question here is "why are there no cats for Alexios to pet??"


	6. Epistles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set very early in their relationship.

The knock at the door interrupted Lykaon’s study of a papyrus containing Hippokrates of Kos’s latest rumination on the treatment of wounds. He reflected briefly that it might be nice to know what it was like to not be a physician, and be able to read without worrying that the knock on the door was a life or death crisis, and then answered it. A man stood with a donkey’s lead rope in his hand.

“You the doctor here?”

“I am.”

“I got paid to bring this to you.” He held out a rectangular bundle wrapped in grubby, stained linen and tied with twine.

Lykaon took it. “I— oh. Thank you. One moment, I’ll get money.”

“Nah.” The man spit off the porch with impressive mastery of the art. “It’s paid for. Good health to you.”

“And to you.”

The bundle rustled like papyrus, but he wasn’t expecting any reading material. Intrigued, he found a small knife and cut the twine, which had been knotted and then sealed with a blob of unmarked wax the same brittle red as that the strategoi used to seal military orders. Unwrapping the filthy linen, he found it was indeed a haphazard pile of papyrus sheets of different sizes. The writing was an unfamiliar and messy hand. He picked up the top sheet and scanned the introduction.

_To Lykaon, physician in Delphi, from Alexios, by my hand_

He sat down abruptly. He hadn’t seen Alexios in almost a month now, had thought that the mercenary had forgotten him, tucked away in the chora that served the temple at Delphi. And yet here was a letter. He rapidly flipped through the other sheets. A very small pile of letters. He hadn’t realized the mercenary was literate.

_To Lykaon, physician in Delphi, from Alexios, by my hand. I write this from the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus, which reminded me of you. It’s beautiful but the priests are shits. I wish you were here with me to see it._

Lykaon’s heart squeezed painfully. Alexios hadn’t forgotten. Flipping the scrap over revealed another unfamiliar hand, the words crossed out vigorously in the mercenary’s ink. Lykaon set it aside and moved on to the next, a larger piece.

_To Lykaon, physician in Delphi, from Alexios, by my hand. I am writing to you from Korinth. The city is very crowded but the view from the Akrokorinth is amazing. I wish you could see it. I don’t have much time for sight seeing but the market has things from all over and you might enjoy it. I wish my business didn’t keep me away, I hope to be back in Phokis again before too much more time has passed._

On the back of that one were once again blotted out words. Lykaon thought he could make out something about troop movements. He picked up the next.

_To Lykaon, from Alexios. I hoped to be heading to Phokis but have had to return to Athens. It’s still a pit of snakes. I would rather be waking in your bed in the Chora of Delphi. I’ll come north when I leave here but I don’t know when that will be yet. There’s always something else to be done and someone else who wants something of me. Soon, I hope._

The back of that letter seemed to be a mess of attempted wordings for…a speech? On politics? It wasn’t in Alexios’s handwriting. There was one last papyrus scrap, not very large.

_Heading north. This will beat me there, but I am coming. I miss you so much._

Lykaon smiled and set it down very carefully. He’d need to make sure he had honey, and maybe add some milk to his order from the dairy for the next little while. Just to be ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word "chora" simply means the principle village of an area, which is why you find multiple villages by that name in Odyssey.
> 
> As noted in one of my historical notes for my big fic, the sons of Spartan citizens were routinely taught to read and write (most of them in the agoge, but Alexios didn't attend -- I make the assumption he received a comparable education at home). A physician might or might not be literate, but Lykaon is the grandson of a former Pythia and as such we can assume he came from a wealthy, high-status family that had the wherewithal to educate him to a high standard and therefore he, too, is literate.


	7. μισθοφορικός

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 276 word peaceful character/relationship study. Early on.

It was sometime after moonrise, with a gentle breeze coming in the open windows carrying with it the smell of damp earth from the storm earlier in the day. They were both half-drowsing, Alexios with his head pillowed on Lykaon’s chest and a heavy arm carelessly over his stomach while Lykaon ran his fingers through Alexios’s hair, gently worrying out the tangles.

“Alexios?”

“Mmmph?”

“What is it, exactly, that you do?”

“’M a mercenary. Whatever I get paid for.”

Lykaon snorted softly and scratched his fingernails over Alexios’s scalp, getting a contented noise for all the world like the purr of a giant cat. “What do people pay you to do?”

“A lot of things. Killing mostly. Sometimes stealing. Once this doctor paid me to get mandrake roots. That was a good one.” Alexios shifted to rest half on top of Lykaon, limp and relaxed and warm. “Whatever they need.”

“Whatever they need? You don’t turn down jobs?”

A lazy shrug of the shoulder. “Depends on the job, and how much I need the money. I can choose now. I couldn’t always.”

“That can’t have been enjoyable.” Lykaon trailed his fingers gently over Alexios’s neck, getting another contented rumble.

“Better than starving, though.” 

“I swear you have at least one new scar every time I see you. And yes, I suppose it would be.”

“’S a dangerous job most of the time. Wolves, bandits, soldiers. Always someone trying to kill me.” He wrapped his arm around Lykaon’s ribs, tucking his hand flat underneath the other man’s shoulder. “Why it’s so nice here with you. No stabbing.”

“You say the most romantic things,” said Lykaon drily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> μισθοφορικός (misthophorikos) is the actual ancient Greek word for "mercenary". "Misthios" just means "hired".


	8. Retired?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Retirement only means so much. Set after "It's Only You, Isn't It?" when Lykaon and Alexios have gotten themselves a house on Lesbos and some goats.

Lykaon made his way home, thoughtful, and found Alexios in a chair outside the front door to catch the setting sun, meticulously sharpening his sword. His concentration was entirely bent on the long sweeps of the whetstone down the blade at an angle precisely calculated to leave the edge sharp enough to shave with. It was, Lykaon had established once, sharper and better maintained than Alexios’s razor. 

He looked up when he heard Lykaon’s step, a smile warming his dark eyes. The doctor picked up his pace a little and bent down to kiss him, working his fingers through his hair to hear the low, pleased rumble in Alexios’s chest.

“How was your day?”

“Oh, the usual,” Alexios nodded toward the chair beside him. “Pull up a chair? How was yours?”

“Slow, mostly. I did run into Qamra, though. You remember her? The general and polemarchos had seized her tools and medicines and were threatening her if she returned to practicing medicine?” He settled into the offered chair, stretching out his legs.

Alexios sighted down the length of his blade, first one side, then the other, and followed it by running a thumbnail carefully along each edge to check for cracks and dings. “Oh? How is she?”

Lykaon glanced sideways at him. “Strangely enough, she has her things back. And the soldiers are all abuzz this afternoon, because it seems this morning the general and the polemarchos both disappeared.”

Alexios grunted non-committally, giving his sword a rub with an oily rag and stowing it in its sheath. Lykaon folded his arms loosely on his chest, leaned his head back against the sun-warmed wall of the house, and waited. It didn’t take long.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Not kill people? Do you know what ‘retired’ means, Alexiskos?”

The mercenary sighed and stowed the whetstone and the rag in a small leather bag. “And leave people in charge who think it’s a fun idea to threaten healers? What if that was you, Lykaon? Wouldn’t you want someone to help you? I’d want someone to help you.”

Lykaon looked over at him, but Alexios was looking away, out over the hills surrounding Mytilene. “You could have let someone else do it, beloved. Just because she needed help doesn’t mean it had to be you that did it.”

“Who else? Who else could do it? There’s no one on the island who has my skills. Maybe no one in all the Greek world right now who can get into a fort and out without killing half the soldiers stationed there as well. Except me. And the general’s house. Better to make two men disappear than kill twenty.”

“There’s _always_ going to be something only you can do. Maybe you need to just let those things go.”

Alexios turned to look at him then, dark eyes haunted and face drawn. “All I could think about,” he said softly, “was what if next they came after you. What if you didn’t just give them your things, and they hurt you. I’d have to kill them all, then. It was cleaner this way. You’re safer.”

“Alexiskos, beloved, you give me too little credit.” Lykaon reached over and took his hand. “I’m no hero, my love. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

The other man looked back out over the hills, lacing their fingers tightly together. “I couldn’t live if anything did. My heart wouldn’t know how to beat without you.”

“Oh, Alexios. Just tell me before you go next time, all right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate the "Nation Leader" convention that Ubisoft uses. Systems of government varied widely between the many city states of Classical Greece, but almost nowhere would you find a place where killing one person would weaken the body politic so sufficiently that it would become suddenly vulnerable to invasion. Accordingly I have substituted "general" for "nation leader" in every single fic.
> 
> Being me, I should substitute "strategos" for "general" but I'm trying to avoid confusion because Ubisoft slings "strategos" around like it's going out of style, with them just scattered all over the place. Ditto polemarchoi. There just weren't as many of these people as Ubisoft thinks! One polemarchos per area, who quite frankly should be the "nation leader", and then one strategos per fort.
> 
> Anyway. Yes I did just kind of leave poor Qamra's quest sitting around until way post-narrative, why do you ask?


End file.
